Monday, November 17, 2008

As promised by Cesar on the latest Zune Insider audio episode, the Zune holiday marketing has launched today on NBC’s Heroes. The campaign is supposed to concentrate on the unique features of Zune, rather than continue the vague messages of the previous campaigns. This ad is a good start to that goal. However, there needs to be more than just this. As much as this is only the first ad, it is a great sign for a big move to the direction that the Zune marketing team needs to take: selling the qualities and features that the Zune embodies. One thing to note though, and I say this based on feedback I’m getting from “regular” folks (those who do not follow tech companies and closely observe their products), is that some people may find the ad content itself really cool, but will never understand that it is a Zune feature and what exactly it does. Like for example, one friend tells me that she thought it was some new Zune feature that would allow people to communicate to each other in a webcam-like method. If you think about, that’s a pretty good reaction if you have no idea of what Zune is. Maybe, and I hate to say it like this, Zune needs more of the “instructional”-type marketing that Apple is really good at. The kind where maybe we can see the same thing we see on this ad, but with a narrator, or Common, explaining what happens when you click on each Mixview component. That way, people see cool stuff going on TV, a known face, and know what it is and what holds in store for them if they download it too. Okay, enough of me. Here is the ad. A way better quality version will replace this one as soon as I make it available. Better quality version now published here. Enjoy.